By Thomas Gerbasi - Last weekend’s full slate of boxing action contained two Showtime-televised events from Southern California: the Gary Russell-headlined ShoBox card featuring the pro debuts of several members of the 2012 United States Olympic team on Friday, and Saturday’s Abner Mares vs. Anselmo Moreno event. During both, it was hard not to notice a kid at ringside who is actually fighting this weekend on HBO, but yet still found the cameras shining on him.

Welcome to the world of Adrien Broner.

Just 23, the brash Cincinnati native dubbed “The Problem” is already a star. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. He’s one of those fighters that you can just picture talking about for the next decade, and he knows it. Yeah, he can be annoying, ****y, and the owner of cringe-worthy statements that one day you hope he’ll look back at and wonder what he was thinking. But then again, you could say that about pretty much anyone who has captured the world’s imagination over the last few decades, and in the new world order of social networking, tweets, touts, and tumblrs, Broner is the leader of this technologically rich – and dangerous – era.

And the crazy thing about the whole situation is that the kid can fight. Yeah, he had plenty of trouble with Daniel Ponce De Leon in March of 2011, but since then, he blasted out Jason Litzau and Vicente Rodriguez early, did the same thing to unbeaten Eloy Perez, and then punished Vicente Escobedo into a five round defeat. It’s been an impressive run and showcase for his speed and power, but even he admits that respect won’t fully start showing up on his doorstep until he completes the first challenge of his move to 135 pounds by beating Antonio DeMarco for the WBC lightweight belt on Saturday in Atlantic City. [Click Here To Read More]

A great read. I wont agree that Broner is already a star but he is already well known in the boxing community more then most that has the limited accomplishment he has. Good for him.